Friends With Benefits [Calum Hood]

Chapter 8.

As my eyes were getting used to the little light coming from the window, I noticed everyone was still asleep. Hale took all the sheets to herself leaving myself freezing with the goddamn air conditioner. I walked up to the door and turned it off before walking back to bed and sitting down. Caci and Hale were peacefully sleeping.

I remembered about last night, how much I missed these sleepovers.. My gaze landed on my phone laying on the floor, I grabbed it trying not to make a sound. After scrolling down some old texts I thought I could text Calum? I opened a new message and automatically stopped, my fingers forming circles in the air. Am I even supposed to text him? It has only been a day but what if he never texts me? Oh god, how does this even works arghh

"Morninggg" Acacia said, scratching her eyes with her palms.

"Morning! Don't be too loud that she is still sleeping" I pointed over to Hale with my free hand.

"Oh right sorry" She said crawling over and sitting next to me. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing really"

"You should text him.. like know" She said looking down at my new yet empty conversation.

"I was about to but what should I even write?" I was stopped by Caci taking my phone away from my hands and typing on it. Two seconds later she hand it back to me.

To: Calum
Taco

From: Calum
Maddy?

To: Calum
Yes, hi sorry

From: Calum
Haha its ok
Remember about hanging out sometime? When are we getting those tacos?

-

After some minutes of texting, Hale woke up. The rest of the day was spent in watching tv, talking with people back at home and basically missing Matt the whole day.

Half through the day Calum texted he was hanging out with his friends at the park we met, so we agreed we could meet right there. Both Caci and Hale wanted to meet him, best known as-milkshake boy- and wanted to make sure this time I would be back home early.

"Ok so here is it" I said as we reached the park. As is was sunny, there was people everywhere to my surprise. As we arrived first we walked over to a tree and sat right next to it. It took Calum almost about fifteen minutes to get there. In the distance I saw him walking next  to two guys.

"Hi Maddy" Calum said, and Luke doing the same later. I was getting great along with both of them, they were really nice.

"Hello Calum" I smiled back at them "This are my friends Acacia, Nick's girlfriend" I pointed at her, "And Hale" I said showing the other girl in my left.

The three boys standing in front of me nodded slowly. "So you know Luke, and my best friend Ashton" Calum introduced each of the boys next to him. My jaw almost dropped.

"Madison?"

"Yes?" I said still trying to remember where I knew him from. "Oh my, Ashton Irwin?" I asked. We started laughing and he hugged me, I hugged back.

"Where the fuck have you been? The last time I saw you.. You were a baby!" He told me. It was like forever since we last saw each other. I think the last time we actually did I was 11 years old and he was 13, he had always treated me as the little one despite the small age difference.. The same Ashton I knew.

"Oh my god, remember?" I asked still amazed about seeing him again after so long. A bunch of flashbacks came into my mind as we were standing there. I remembered about my grandmother's beach house, how we could run to the beach everyday.. We could later sneak into the kitchen and eat her cookies, he usually stayed over and we watched bunch of movies.

"Do you know each other?" Calum interrupted bringing me back to reality.

"Yeah well her grandma was really close to mine. And Maddy used to live here, so whenever our grannies met up we'd also see each other and play together." Ashton explained.

"Remember? Great days..." I said

"Maz had a crush on me" He said trying to bring another topic to the conversation.

"Then why did't you continue seeing each other?" Calum asked, there we go..

"My, my grandma passed away" Ashton finally said. His grandma was like my second grandmother so it took me a while to take that information in. This was continued by a long silence.

"I'm sorry" Calum said looking down at his feet.

"It's ok, I mean, it isn't your fault" He said, everyone always said the same when this happened, whenever they even asked for my father.. It was quite uncomfortable, at least for me.

"So Maddeeey! Why are you here now? Holidays?" Ash asked as he took me away from the group to sit with me on a bunch not too far away.

"I kind of.. decided to take some long holidays with my friends" I said looking back at the girls over the tree some feet away from us. They were all looking at us but I was sure Ashton didn't notice, so I quickly looked back at Ashton.

"How have you been?"

"Great you know, still at Perth" I smiled

"Yeahh I remember! What about your parents? Julia?" He asked, damn he still remembers about them

"Um actually- Dad passed away some years ago and Julia now has changed, you know..." As I finished talking my cheeks were already filled by tears. I put my hands on my face trying to wipe them, when I felt Ashton's arms around me, him hugging me tight. I felt it was okay to tell him about everything after not seeing each other for years. It was like seeing my second brother again, I had missed him like crazy, I had missed this. My relationship with him was better than the one with Matt.. But since I was taken away from Ashton, Matt kind of took his place.

"It's okay, please don't cry." He rubbed my back slowly, "I'm here for you now, okay? I promise" He said as he ended the hug.

"Yeah" I said wiping away the few tears left on my face. "Ever since we moved to Perth, I always asked mom to come back to visit you and nana.. But Julia kept making up excuses in order not to come back, I don't even know why she suddenly decided to leave Sydney behind. Years later, she finally told me what happened to your grandma and that was when I most wanted to come back, but I just couldn't.. I missed you Ashton" I said really quickly. He smiled back at me and hugged me once more.

"Now you have me and I'm not letting you go, like it or not" He said making me chuckle.

"I'm totally fine with that" I agreed. "So now you tell me.. How have you been these past years? What about your family? And what about Harry and your sister?" I asked him, every single possible question left my mouth. I wanted to know what he was up to all this time, all these years.. I also missed this endless talks with him. Well maybe when we were younger we barely talked since we could be messing around and playing all the time, just spending every single day together. He was one of those friends I could see once ever two months but whenever I saw him we would act as if we saw each other everyday, it wasn't necessary for us to keep in touch all the time since we knew we were best friends.

Calum's POV

Every now and then my gaze went back to Madison sitting with Ashton away from us. If we met up here then why Ashton must took her away with him? My gaze came back to Luke, back to the conversation we were having. I could comment sometimes since we were talking about Nick and how Luke couldn't remember about him.. but I wasn't really into the conversation.

"Just go there and tell her you like her before Ashton does it" Luke said.

"Wha-t? I don't like her, shut up" I said, almost whispering at the end.. Acacia kept on talking and I just looked again over to Maddy and Ashton's direction. She was still laughing, and he kept talking.. When was this going to finish?